Medium [CVE-2026-74524] Fix out-of-bounds page-table walk during memory hot-remove

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: riscv: mm: Fix out-of-bounds page-table walk during memory hot-remove remove_pud_mapping() and remove_p4d_mapping() obtain a child table base with pud_offset(p4dp, 0) and p4d_offset(pgd, 0), then add the index for addr. RISC-V folds page-table levels at runtime.

When a level is folded, its offset helper returns the parent entry itself, but the index can still be nonzero. Adding it walks past the parent table.

Sv48 folds P4D, while Sv39 folds both P4D and PUD, so memory hot-remove can descend into unrelated memory and pass an invalid page to __free_pages(). This can trigger: kernel BUG at include/linux/mm.h:1810!

VM_BUG_ON_PAGE(page_ref_count(page) == 0) arch_remove_memory+0x1e/0x5c try_remove_memory+0x15e/0x200 remove_memory+0x24/0x3c Only add the index when the corresponding page-table level is enabled, matching p4d_offset() and pud_offset().

When performing memory hot-remove operations on systems using RISC-V architecture, an out-of-bounds page-table walk can occur. This issue arises because the system attempts to access memory outside of its designated boundaries, potentially leading to a kernel bug and a system crash.

This vulnerability could allow a local attacker to cause a denial of service. Red Hat severity: Moderate — CVSS 5.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

Weakness: CWE-787.